Hydrogen, a flammable, colorless, odorless and highly chemically active gas, has a rich content and is mainly applied in the field of basic chemical synthesis. In the recent years, development trends of hydrogen are also targeted at being a substitute energy. In addition to the foregoing applications, based on properties of having high chemical activities and being easily combined with a carbon substance, industrialists may further apply hydrogen for removing carbon deposition in an internal combustion engine to enhance operating efficiency of the internal combustion engine.
Principles of an internal combustion engine are described briefly as follows. A fuel source is inputted into an internal combustion engine and is mixed with hydrogen for combustion. During the process, chemical energy obtained is converted to mechanical energy. According to different types of fuel sources, these fuel sources may be applied to gasoline engines, diesel engines and biomass energy engines, as well as to equipments of various fields such as motor bikes, automobiles, ships, airplanes and rockets. Most fuels include compositions of hydrocarbon compounds. As a result, during the operation process of an internal combustion engine, carbon particles are often accumulated and deposited as the abovementioned carbon deposition. The carbon deposition may degrade the performance of the engine, or even damage and lead to malfunctions of the engine in more severe cases.
There are conventional methods that introduce hydrogen into an internal combustion engine to remove carbon deposition. For example, the Taiwan Patent No. M484630 discloses “Device that Removes Carbon Deposition of Fuel Engine by Hydrogen or Mixed Gas of Hydrogen and Nitrogen”. In the above disclosure, a device, which removes carbon deposition of a fuel engine by hydrogen or a mixed gas of hydrogen and nitrogen, directly stores the hydrogen or the mixed gas of hydrogen and nitrogen in a steel bottle or another container, and introduces the hydrogen or the mixed gas of hydrogen and nitrogen to a fuel engine to remove carbon deposition in the fuel engine.
In current technologies, industrial methods for manufacturing hydrogen are employed as a source for hydrogen, and mainly adopt steam reforming as such approach has higher conversion efficiency. However, such approach involves high-temperature operations or has innate chemical reactions yielding high pollutions that lead to environmental damages. On the other hand, with the industrial methods for manufacturing hydrogen, general users can only purchase and then store the hydrogen for further utilization. Thus, not only the above technologies for removing carbon deposition cannot be extensively disseminated and promoted, but also various application inconveniences are resulted.